Generally in video systems live video is captured and stored in memory, and fed into a video processing unit before being sent out for display on a video output device. Processing can involve such functions as, for example, scaling, compositing, and format conversion. Scaling can be horizontal and/or vertical, where scaling in one direction can involve increasing or decreasing the pixels per line, thus increasing or decreasing the size of an image and its format. Compositing can involve overlaying the video with a layer of graphics or text. Such processes may have an effect on the bandwidth of the memory of the system. For example, format conversions often cause an increase or decrease in the amount of memory required for capturing an input or an output into the memory. These processes affect the data rate in the system. If data rate is exceeded at any process in the system, problems arise and cause errors in the video flow.
One problem that is often encountered in video systems involves dual output videos. For example, one video source sometimes may need to be displayed on two different displays. The two displays in some instances are not the same, and some scaling and other processing is needed to display the video properly. Existing systems often do not support splitting one video source to be sent to different destinations. More specifically, sending the same video source to different destinations requiring different scaling factors is not supported by existing technology. As a result, when multiple destination devices are utilized for displaying a single video source, the video source has to send the video data multiple times, each time to a different one of the destination devices. In this regard, this is effectively equivalent to using multiple sources. Sending the video data multiple times is greatly inefficient and wasteful of system resources.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.